Hold On Tight!

For Valentine's Day this year I wanted to get the kids something they could really use instead of more candy and another stuffed animal that would just end up collecting dust. So the procrastinator that I am hit Target on Friday night after the kiddos went to bed. I think I walked all of the aisles twice until something really cool caught my eye...a tree swing! Yep, that would be perfect for them.

I came home and wrapped it up and let them open it first thing Valentine's Day morning. Kadence was soooo excited that she couldn't stop asking her Daddy to put it up. That afternoon, Charlie climbed up the ladder and tied it up to the tree. The kids love it! Kadee has totally gotten the hang of it and will run and jump on and has even tried standing on it a time or two. Cole-man is hilarious to watch on it. He holds on for dear life and eventually loses his balance and falls off one side only to beg to get back on. This little do-hickey provided us with hours of free entertainment this weekend. I am glad I was able to find something fun and practical!

Kadee's School Snack

Kadence has been asking me for the last couple weeks to buy circle crackers, spaghetti sauce and white cheese so she could make us her secret snack she learned in school. This last week I finally remembered and after school she suggested she make it for us. She placed the crackers on the pan, spooned some spaghetti sauce on each and covered each one with white cheese, otherwise known as mozzarella. We put them in the oven for a couple minutes and then voila! They were so easy to make and very yummy. Good job Kadee Bug!

Homeade Valentine's Day Card

Kadence made me and Charlie the cutest Valentine's Day card in school. She was so excited to give it to us I think mainly because she made it herself. I love homemade cards and gifts, if only I had time to make them!

Hers was super cute. She informed me and Charlie that the silver Hershey Kisses were for Charlie and the red were for me because my favorite color is red.

Valentine's Day Cards

Kadee made out her own Valentine's Day cards...27 of them for her class. She decided to give the kids High School Musical cards attached to a packet of Fun Dip (you know the packets of colored sugar you eat with a stick made out of pure sugar...yeah her classmates mommy's and daddy's are going to LOVE us!)

Valentine's Brownies

I stayed home with Cole on Thursday, we found out he had severe Bronchitis and a double ear infection...lovely and lots of fun :) I was starting to get a sore throat and wasn't feeling all that great either. We took Kadee to school and picked her up at the end of the day where I was given a wonderful report from her teacher. Kadence has recently has some problems socializing in class and not paying attention to the teacher. We have had several long conversations with her and the teacher thanked me very much for our efforts because whatever we were doing was working. What a relief. On top of that, she has been given a list of words to learn every week. On Thursdays, the teacher tests each kid and those who have learned their words get to move on. This week she struggled a little bit so I thought she might have a hard time with her test, but she didn't she passed with flying colors.

I thought she deserved some quality mommy and me time so I put Cole down for a nap (that's a whole other story...for two hours he laid in his bed with the occasional "MOMMY!" screamed at the top of his lungs! I wasn't going to cave in, he needed his sleep. I kept peeking in on him to make sure he was okay and on my last peek saw that he pulled his TV/DVD combo into his bed and pulled out the DVD player that is on the side of the TV! No more DVD's for Cole!)

Anyways, me and Kadee decided we would bake brownies...yum. We spent the afternoon chatting it up, mixing brownies which Kadence did all by herself and just enjoying time together. We had a blast and best of all got to have some delicious brownies to top off our afternoon.

Eggs for Breakfast Anyone???

So Monday morning was crazy, as are all weekday mornings in my house. Charlie was flying out to Albuquerque for work so I needed to get him to the airport on my way into work. Cole and Kadence were up coughing all night long so I was trying to make arrangements with my mom who so graciously volunteered to watch them for a couple hours while I headed into work to get a few must-dos completed. So in the craziness of getting everyone ready I was in my bathroom and I heard Charlie with nothing but shock in his voice, "OH MY GOD!" I calmly responded, "What?" thinking to myself, do I really want to know? "Come look," he replied which I quickly responded, "no, I don't want to." I knew it was going to be bad. I walked out the bathroom door through my bedroom to the top of the stairs where Kadence and Charlie were standing. Kadee was covering her mouth with her hand so I knew right then and there, nothing good had happened. I peeked over Charlie's shoulder and just had to laugh.


Cole was standing at the bottom of the stairs, the refrigerator door was wide open and there were eggs broken all over the kitchen floor. The thing is is that my eggs are pretty well hidden on a higher shelf in the fridge back behind several bottles of jelly, etc...yet he found them. We slowly walked down stairs and counted at least a dozen eggs broken all over the kitchen and dining room floor. Kadee went into the living room and found two whole eggs he threw into the living room but luckily for the carpet they didn't break...whew! Oh wait it was Monday morning so it could only get worse right! Right, the dogs had attempted to help clean up a couple of the eggs and decided they weren't too yummy so they threw up all over the floor. Oh I love Mondays. Even more so, I love my curious athletic son, he is always good for a good chuckle!

Rainy Days

It rained all day long today so we were trying to come up with things to do to keep us all occupied. When it was time for Cole to take a nap Kadee came down from cleaning her room with a look of complete boredom on her face. I suggested that maybe we could play a board game to pass the time and Charlie suggested we play the old favorite, Clue.

We bought Clue a long time ago but had never played it, it was still in the plastic wrapping. Well little did I know that Charlie has a quirky tradition when he plays the game clue. He makes peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches. Being pregnant like I am you would think this would sound good to me but I was pretty skeptical as he started putting them together for himself and Kadence. You would think that after 16 years together I would know all there is to know about him, but I guess we have never played Clue together so I wouldn't know about the PB/Mallow sandwich! I took a bite of Kadence's and was surprised at how yummy they were.


After he and Kadee were done eating we sat down to a game of Clue. Kadee did great with a little help and Charlie ended up winning...Ms. White did it in the Billiard Room with the Knife (in case you were wondering). After the game of Clue we introduced Kadee to UNO. She really got a hang of this game and actually won the first game in the fastest time I have ever witnessed!


Even though we were stuck inside it ended up being a great day!

Don't Mention Any Food Around Me...

Okay so my pregnancy cravings have gone into full swing! The funny thing is that I don't just all of a sudden crave something, I have what I like to call suggestive cravings. All that has to happen is someone has to say a type of food, I can see a commercial or just simply drive by a restaurant and it just kicks in. Well Friday the suggestive craving went into full gear. Yelena just simply mentioned Arby's before lunch and that was that. I would have Arby's for lunch...one way or another! Immediately after Arby's was mentioned everyone else started kicking in more suggestions, Beef-N-Cheddar's, Curly Fries...Lunch time could not come fast enough! We all loaded into Charlie's truck and off we went to Arby's. After a full serving of Beef-N-Cheddar and Curly Fries we were all stuffed, however...

I decided it was a great time to act on a craving I have had for at least a week now, thanks to Clarice at work. One day she mentioned Luv It's and since the words slipped out of her mouth I have had the craving in the back of my head. So I decided today was a great day to act on it! Luv It's is a small mom and pop frozen custard shop. Everyday they have a different feature flavor and my all time favorite is butter pecan! Clarice had mentioned that Friday's was butter pecan day so I thought I better take advantage of it being Friday! So with full tummy's already we trekked over to Luv It's. I was the only one who has had Luv It's before so it was new to Charlie, Dallas, Diane and Yelena.

I quickly looked at the featured flavor menu to make sure Friday was butter pecan day and much to my surprise it was not...today was peach! I am not a fan of peach but lucky for me the man told me he had a little butter pecan left. YEAH! It was as I remember, pure heaven. Everyone else split between the Turtle Special which was covered in nuts and chocolate and the Jimmy Special which had butterscotch, sliced bananas and chocolate jimmies. YUMMY!

What Should I Teach Kadence Today???

Kadee's homework tonight included cutting out words and pasting them to the appropriate picture on the worksheet. I was juggling between getting dinner cooked and helping her with her homework. I got her started and she cut out her first word and started putting glue on it to paste to the worksheet. She got a little too much on the picture and immediately asked for help with her mess.

I initially reached for a paper towel to wipe up the mess and then thought, wait a second...I am missing a golden opportunity to teach my daughter an old trick! I took the gooey piece of paper out of her hand, turned it upside down and wiped the excess glue all over the palm of her hand. The look on her face was priceless! It was a look of shock and disgust all rolled into one. I assured her what I was doing was super cool, so she quickly smiled and went along with mommy's directions to blow on the glue until it dried.


Soon enough the glue was dry and I showed her how to peel the layer of glue off of her hand which she thought was pretty darn cool. Oh the wonderful things we teach our young!

Facebook Brings Old Friends Together

So I recently posted on my joining Facebook. Not too crazy over the whole format of things but all in all I continue to be amazed at how this tool can get you back in touch with so many people. There are actually a couple of girls here in Vegas (Shayla and Eve) that I went to high school with and have kept in touch with here and there over the years. For those who know me well, I am not the best at keeping in touch! The last time I saw these girls was for my 30th birthday. A couple of old friends flew out to Vegas and we all met up for a birthday bash since we had all just turned 30! It was a great time!

Well after joining Facebook, I got in contact with them again. We set up a lunch date on Saturday. We met at the sushi restaurant in Town Square and spent the afternoon catching up. It was great to see these girls again and to catch up on old times and old friends.